Fact checking the chairman

At Monday’s signing of the state budget, Assemblyman Louis Greenwald, D-Camden, was among the four lawmakers invited to speak, given his position of chairman of the Assembly Budget Committee. As he did last week in an Assembly floor speech that defended the budget from critics, Greenwald cited other states he said are in a worse position than New Jersey by one or another measure.

Among the things Greenwald said is this: “When you look at states that are facing record unemployment rates like Connecticut, Georgia and Florida, New Jersey is not in the list of those states. In fact, in direct contrast, you hear our secretary of labor testify a month ago before our committee that our unemployment rate will be a full percentage point less next year.”

That’s not accurate. Connecticut’s unemployment rate was 8 percent in May — a month in which the state added 3,600 nonfarm jobs. Probably he was confusing the Nutmeg State with Rhode Island, which is one of eight states — along with California, Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina and the other two Greenwald nailed — with an unemployment rate higher than at any point since 1976, when records started being kept. (I’m guessing unemployment was worse in the 1930s.)

New Jersey’s unemployment rate, by the way, is 8.8 percent. Twenty states are higher. Last time it was higher was February 1983. Its record unemployment rate is 10.6 percent, from late 1976 to early 1977.